Schemes for Anganwadi workers

Anganwadi Services is one of the flagship programmes of the Government of India providing early childhood care and development of the beneficiaries i.e children in the age group of 0-6 years, pregnant women and lactating mothers through a large network of Anganwadi workers (AWW) and Helpers (AWH).

Benefits to Anganwadi Workers and Helpers

The following benefits are being provided to the Anganwadi Workers and Helpers:

• Honorarium : The AWWs and AWHs are paid fixed honorarium per month as decided by the Government from time to time. The Government gives an honorarium w.e.f. 01.10.2018 to AWWs  at Rs 4,500/- per month; AWWs at mini-AWCs at Rs 3,500/- per month; AWHs at Rs 2,250/- per month; and introduced performance linked incentive of Rs 250/- per month to AWHs and @ Rs 500/- per month to AWWs.
• In addition to the honorarium paid by the Government of India, most of the States/UTs are also giving monetary incentives to these workers out of their own resources.
• Leave: AWWs/AWHs are allowed paid absence of 180 days of maternity leave and 20 days annual leave.
• Award: In order to motivate AWWs/and give recognition to good voluntary work, a Scheme of Award for AWWs has been introduced, both at the National and State level. The Award comprises Rs.50,000/- cash and a Citation to AWW and Rs.40,000/- to AWHs.
• Uniform: Government has made a provision for a set of two Uniform (saree/suit per annum @ Rs.500/- each).
• Monthly pension : State Governments/UT Administrations have been requested to encourage eligible AWWs/AWHs to get themselves enrolled under the Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Mandhan (PM-SYM) Pension Scheme on voluntary basis in order to get assured monthly pension on attaining the age of 60 years.
• Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package (PMGKP) Insurance Scheme for Health Care Workers fighting COVID-19 with personal accident cover of Rs. 50 Lakh has also been extended to Anganwadi Workers/Helpers who may have been in direct contact and care of COVID-19 patients and may be at risk of being impacted by this, subject to fulfillment of the certain conditions.

Technical empowerment 

• Under POSHAN Abhiyaan, Aanganwadi workers (AWWs) have been technologically empowered with the provision of smartphones.
• The mobile application of POSHAN Abhiyaan digitizes and automates physical registers used by Aanganwadi workers. This saves the time of AWWs and AWHs, and improves the quality of their work while simultaneously allowing them real-time monitoring.

Source : Ministry of Women and Child Development